Kinew puts stamp on 2024 Premier basks in honeymoon period as difficult decisions loom By: Maggie Macintosh Posted: 6:00 AM CST Monday, Dec. 23, 2024

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/12/2024 (306 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Premier Wab Kinew is entering 2025 — following his first full calendar year as the leader of Manitoba — with more ink, and his latest tattoo is a tribute to the electorate.

Kinew recently had a black-and-white bison etched into his inner right forearm.

The permanent artwork is tattooist Sheldon Withawick’s rendition of the Manitoba coat of arms, an official emblem in the company of the provincial flag, polar bear and Prairie crocus.

“It’s a way to mark the moment in time,” the NDP leader said, after rolling up his sleeve to show off his latest tattoo from Soul Survivors Body Art in Osborne Village.

“I love this province so much; it took a little boy from the reserve and gave me the life that I have today.”

Kinew, who is originally from Onigaming First Nation, located about 150 kilometres southeast of the Manitoba-Ontario border, reflected on the last 12 months during an interview with the Free Press.

Throughout the wide-ranging discussion, he talked about “Nello’s Law,” reconfiguring emergency rooms to separate patients who show up with broken bones and people in drug-induced crises, and other ongoing projects.

The rollout of a $30-million school food program, a key plank in his party’s election campaign, was a priority during his first year in the premier’s office.

Kinew recently announced his intention to protect the “universally accessible” program with legislation named after Nello Altomare, the education minister who is on a medical leave, so 100 per cent of Manitoba public schools feed at least some students throughout the week.

The province is eyeing balanced budget law as a potential framework, he told the Free Press.

“When we look forward to the future, it’s about making sure that we balance the affordability needs of Manitobans with priorities like health-care and having the flexibility to respond to a second Trump administration.”–Premier Wab Kinew

“We want to create a pathway to post-secondary instead of a pipeline to prison,” Kinew said, adding he is confident Manitoba streets will be safer in 20 years as a result of this policy intervention.

While admitting it is technically impossible to restrict a succeeding government from undoing something, the premier said he believes the NDP can “politically future-proof” by building public buy-in.

He noted that free meals can get children into classrooms so they eventually cross the graduation stage and go on to a trade, work or post-secondary and become productive members of society.

The “tyranny of the acute,” a public health concept that describes the overemphasis on front-line medical treatment to the detriment of everything else that contributes to a population’s well-being, has stuck with him since he learned about it earlier this year.

Ensuring manageable workloads for doctors and nurses and high-quality patient care is linked to spending on initiatives that support children’s well-being, he said.

On the latest forecast deficit being up $513 million more than anticipated in the spring budget — a reality that has been attributed to surging expenses in the health, seniors and long-term care department, Kinew said the province must demand better budgeting processes from health regions and fine-tune service delivery.

As patients and professionals alike grapple with the status quo chaos in emergency rooms, the province is looking at approaches that could allow people who are high on meth and experiencing psychosis to be treated in specialized settings, he said.

Opening a supervised consumption site is part of the NDP’s immediate strategy to support Manitobans with addictions and alleviate pressure on primary care facilities.

Kinew said there is a “moral imperative” to move ahead with the site because of its potential to save lives, but it needs to be situated where, and operated in a way, that surrounding community members have confidence in their safety.

Provincial officials are slated to go door-knocking in the new year to consult residents who live near the proposed location at 200 Disraeli Fwy.

The premier said the coming weeks will be filled with finalizing a “comprehensive plan” for Jan. 20, inauguration day south of the border, owing to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s threat to slap 25-per cent tariffs on all Canadian goods and services.

“We will roll that out when necessary… I don’t want us to get too far down the path of hypothetical scenarios,” Kinew said, adding the province is doing modelling and does not want to prematurely reveal its international strategy or response to protect local businesses and jobs.

His “rose” of 2024 — a camp counsellor-ism for his highlight — was what he described as a worldview-shifting visit to the beaches of Normandy, France, for the 80th anniversary of D-Day in June.

In recognition of veterans’ contributions to Canada, Kinew bought a red-and-white flag after the trip and started flying the Maple Leaf outside his home in River Heights.

“Our throne speech was heavily framed by that reverence for the people who fought for our democracy, both overseas and here, at home,” he said.

“That’s our government’s agenda for the coming year. We talked a lot about freedom for the big things like our democratic institutions, but also, just on the very basic level like the freedom of somebody to live a good life with a good school for your kids, and an ability to own your own home.”

As for his 2024 thorn? The tragedies, including the killing of three children, their mother and her niece in Carman, and deaths of three high-profile Manitobans: justice Murray Sinclair; Cathy Merrick, former grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs; and former NDP MLA Harry Schellenberg.

Kinew also acknowledged the death of lineman Kyle Spalding, a Manitoba Hydro lineman who died on Aug. 8 while responding to a power outage in the Interlake.

“The thorniest part of the year was saying, ‘See you again’ to a lot of people who mattered a lot to us,” he said.

Ahead of New Year’s Eve, the premier’s 43rd birthday, Kinew said he is not sitting on any regrets and is proud of his government’s record.

He did not mention his party’s scandalous removal of Mark Wasyliw and widespread criticism the leader faced for linking it to the now-independent MLA’s connection to a defence lawyer representing disgraced fashion mogul Peter Nygard, a convicted sex offender, in court.

(The premier later issued a formal apology to Gerri Wiebe, the defence lawyer in question, and the profession at large — and while doing so, acknowledged the importance of an independent justice system. The gestures were made after the Opposition Tories raised an unsuccessful motion calling for a workplace probe into the premier’s management practices.)

Instead, Kinew touted new health-care hires, a cultural shift in the civil service, and the gas tax holiday, which was extended multiple times and remained intact for all of 2024.

An official announcement about the future of the provincial fuel tax is anticipated Monday.

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“When we look forward to the future, it’s about making sure that we balance the affordability needs of Manitobans with priorities like health-care and having the flexibility to respond to a second Trump administration,” he said.

Asked about when his government will stop placing blame on Progressive Conservatives and the fallout of decisions made between 2016 and 2023, Kinew said more than seven years of cuts to health care cannot be reversed in 14 months.

“We will continue to refer to the cause of the effects that patients are living with now,” he added, in response to a rephrasing of that question.

The premier is planning to spend much of the holiday season with his wife, children and other loved ones, cosy at home in a hoodie — a stark contrast to the tailored suits he dons during the work week.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Maggie Macintosh
Education reporter

Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., she first reported for the Free Press in 2017. Read more about Maggie.

Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.

Every piece of reporting Maggie produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.